The Relative Merits Of Honey
by ScopesMonkey
Summary: Sherlock and John attend the Bristol Honey Festival.  A pre-slash one shot, but in the Sugarverse.  Just a bit of fun.


**A/N:** The Bristol Honey Festival ran August 28-30, 2010. There is (was) one in London this year, but as far as I know, there wasn't in 2010, so that's why I went with Bristol. This is based on a suggestion from **mattsloved1**, so I hope you like it! And I hope the rest of you like it, too. In terms of the timeline, it's set about 2 months before "The Tea Sugar Experiment" and "The Tea Sugar Problem". I do not own, nor do I profit from. Enjoy!

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><p>John had thought the cry of "Get your shoes, John, we're going out!" meant a case. He'd hurried down from his room to find his flatmate already waiting impatiently by the door – Sherlock had probably decided they needed to go about an hour before informing John of their imminent departure. He'd wondered what the case was – he hadn't heard Sherlock on the phone talking to Lestrade, but with the way his flatmate operated, the case could have come in hours ago and Sherlock might just have decided to take it.<p>

He had not expected to find himself at Paddington Station and he had definitely not expected to end up at Bristol Temple Meads a little under two hours later.

"Sherlock, what are we doing in Bristol?" he asked. He wondered if maybe there was some sort of smuggling case at the ports or maybe a high-tech spy conspiracy involving top secret, state-of-the-art technology. John re-evaluated that; the last time they'd been involved with top secret plans, he'd ended up as Jim Moriarty's last pip and he and Sherlock had both almost died.

"Honey," his flatmate said breezily and John blinked.

"Honey?" he asked.

"Yes, John, honey. Honestly, you should consider having your hearing checked."

"My hearing is just fine," John sighed. "I'm just a bit confused as to what honey has to do with anything."

Sherlock clucked his tongue and gave John a reproving look.

_Of course_, John thought. _I should just know._

"The Bristol Honey Festival, John. It's on this weekend. We are going."

"We are?" John asked incredulously. Out of every possibility he'd considered for why they were mysteriously in Bristol, honey hadn't even crossed his mind in any way, shape, or form. "Why?"

"Why not?" Sherlock replied as they left the station. He hailed them a cab and John considered not getting in – but he caved with a sigh. Of course he'd get in. Sherlock didn't even seem to entertain the possibility that John wouldn't accompany him. Probably if John suggested that he'd had other plans, Sherlock would have given him a surprised look and informed him that those plans were "dull" or "boring" and that – somehow – a honey festival was infinitely more interesting.

John hadn't intended to spend the last weekend of August in Bristol pondering various types of honey. He'd actually been thinking of ringing Sarah and having a walk in Regent's Park or going to her place to watch some old movies. Something relaxing, undemanding. Something that didn't involve a spur-of-the-moment trip to Bristol with his eccentric flatmate.

_Well there's always tomorrow_, he thought. Unless, of course, Sherlock had plans for them to stay overnight. _I'm not doing that_, John told himself. _I'm going home today. Besides, if he booked us into a hotel, he'd probably get a room with one bed and then wonder why that's weird_.

The cab dropped them off in an area already bustling with pedestrians and John followed Sherlock into the throng, glancing around. He hoped there weren't bees on hand with the honey – bees always made him nervous. He wasn't allergic to them, but he still had no desire to be stung.

He kept an eye on Sherlock; this wasn't difficult, as most people were not six-foot-two with dark hair and pale skin. He sort of stood out in a crowd. They wove their way through the press of people, all of whom seemed content to participate in this honey festival.

John was frankly astonished. He'd never before considered that honey was anything particularly interesting. It was honey. It came in little jars at the Tesco that were sometimes inexplicably shaped like bears. He always had a container on hand, although he wasn't sure why. It was just something everyone had. It wasn't anything special.

How wrong he was.

Sherlock turned and gave him one of those "I'm-teaching-you-something" grins of his and John sighed. A few minutes in and he'd already seen more varieties than he'd ever thought possible and there were jars that looked like they contained solid honey rather than liquid. He wondered about that – was it supposed to be crystallised? He always hated when that happened to the honey he bought.

"Come here, John," Sherlock commanded from a few metres away and John looked up, realising he was dawdling. He wished he'd brought a hat or a bottle of water. The sun was beating down on them and it was already midday – he wondered if Sherlock would let them stop for lunch, too. He wasn't about to be press-ganged into eating honey as a meal. It wasn't enough.

He wound his way past some honey enthusiasts to join Sherlock, who was standing in front of a stall with more kinds of honey than John's rather limited imagination regarding honey types would have thought possible.

"Here," Sherlock said and extended something toward him. It was a thin wafer coated in – no surprise – honey. John managed to take it before Sherlock fed it to him. Over half a year of living together had not really dulled Sherlock's complete lack of social boundaries. If anything, it had reinforced them. John had a hard enough time convincing people they weren't a couple under normal circumstances. If Sherlock started feeding him sweets, John would probably have to give up on anyone believing him at all.

"Oh my God," he managed through a full mouth, then pressed his hand over his lips. Sherlock was grinning at him. "What is that? That's amazing!"

"Orange blossom honey," the woman running the stall replied with a grin of her own.

"What?" John asked.

"Honey is classified by floral source, John," Sherlock said. "Different flowers produce different flavours. There's also grades of colour and opacity as well as classifications for processing and packaging."

"Here, try this," the woman said, giving him another wafer. "Raspberry."

John tried it and then blinked in shock – he really could taste a difference.

"And this one's clover," she said, extending him another thin biscuit. The third one was less distinguishable, more like what he'd consider regular honey.

"Let him try the set honey," Sherlock said and the woman nodded. He turned back to John. "It's processed to control crystallisation, which produces honey with a spreadable consistency."

John tried the set honey while Sherlock purchased several small jars in various flavours. The doctor tried to resist rolling his eyes – he doubted Sherlock was intending to eat them. He probably had some macabre experiments in mind. He thanked the woman when Sherlock wandered away and hurried to catch up.

"How do you know so much about honey?" he demanded. Sherlock paused and gave him a surprised look.

"We have bees at the Buckinghamshire house," he said, as though this were obvious. John sighed and rolled his eyes.

_Of course they do_, he thought. He hadn't met Sherlock's parents but he had met Mycroft, and it had come as no surprise to John to learn that Sherlock had grown up on a vast estate that could probably function as its own small community if necessary. That meant they had staff, so of course they had a beekeeper. It probably wasn't a proper estate without one.

"Fascinating creatures," Sherlock commented and John refocused. "Rather like humans in many ways – a high and complex level of sociality, intricate methods of communication and group member recognition, and, of course, each hive is ruled by a single queen."

"Except, of course, most of the general population of Britain is not made up of sterile females," John pointed out.

"Nor are we males required to mate with our queen. I can hardly see a single human female being responsible for the large number of children it would require to adequately populate our country."

John stopped and shuddered. Sherlock glanced back at him quizzically.

"I really, really wish you hadn't said that," the doctor sighed and shook his head to try and dispel the mental image this had created.

"The parallels are not perfect, John," Sherlock replied crisply. "I can hardly imagine that the succession in the royal family requires assassination anymore. And, of course, unless there is some extremely drastic culling of the ranks, our next monarch will be a king. However, this does not make bees any less fascinating."

_Bees and honey_, John thought. _This from a man who didn't know that the Earth revolves around the Sun._

To be fair, Sherlock remembered that now. Still, it was strange and unpredictable what he considered important enough to store on his "hard drive".

"What do you intend to do with that honey?" John asked, wondering if he even wanted to know.

Sherlock gave him a surprised look.

"Eat it," he replied.

"Eat it?" John asked.

"Of course eat it. What else would I do with it?"

"I don't know!" John replied. "I thought you were planning – I don't know – some experiment to see how long it would stay in someone's mouth before dissolving after death or something."

Sherlock stopped and turned to John abruptly, giving the doctor a long searching look, as if to try and determine that he was serious.

"What an odd thing to say, John," he commented.

John threw up his hands in resignation.

"Anyway, since when do you eat anything?"

"I maintain a regular diet when I'm not working," Sherlock replied with a sniff.

"Yeah, right," John muttered, not quite under his breath. "Anyway, what are you going to eat it with? Or are you going to just eat it straight out of the jar?"

"Of course not, don't be ridiculous. I quite enjoy it on toast for breakfast."

"Okay, I _know_ you don't eat breakfast!"

Sherlock rolled his eyes.

"I don't eat breakfast before you go to work in the morning. It does not matter when I eat it, the first meal of the day must technically be breakfast."

"So, when do you normally eat?" John asked.

Sherlock just shrugged and John rolled his eyes again. That wasn't surprising. He supposed he should just be glad that Sherlock ate anything at all. He fell into step beside his flatmate again – Sherlock showed no indications of wanting to leave anytime soon, so John glanced around and found a fish and chips stand where he bought himself lunch and a bottle of water.

"We'll be well stocked after today," he commented. "I suppose if we ever run out of sugar, we could use some of your honey for our tea."

Sherlock gave him an incredulous look, as if John had suddenly grown another head.

"What?" the doctor asked, juggling his food so he could open his water.

"Please tell me you aren't serious," Sherlock sniffed.

"Um, yeah," John said. "What, you've never done that?"

"Why on Earth would you want to do that?" Sherlock demanded. "That is foul."

"It's fine, actually," John replied. He thought about it, then realised he'd probably picked that up from some Americans or Canadians he'd known in Afghanistan. Still, it worked in a pinch and didn't taste too different. At least it hadn't out there – maybe he'd notice it more here where he was looking for more than just "sweet and milky" as qualities in his tea.

"Let us hope it never comes to that," Sherlock sniffed. "I cannot imagine anything more offensive to do to a proper cup of tea. Honestly, John, have some sense."

John rolled his eyes at Sherlock's back when the detective turned and started moving through the crowd again. He hurried to keep up, taking a swig of his water. Sherlock had honed in on some new stand and was arguing about colour grades and comparing notes on bee hives.

He shook his head again, polishing off his fish and chips. Even now, Sherlock never failed to surprise him. He'd have to remember to keep them in sugar for Sherlock's tea, he told himself. Probably all hell would break loose if he didn't.


End file.
